They both fell silent and eventually she drifted off. She couldn’t be sure, but somewhere in that gray haze before true sleep she could have sworn she felt cool breath against her ear and a distant voice whispering something softly into it.
She thought at the end she heard a pause and a soft and barely audible “thank you.”
But she couldn’t be sure.
**********
“Calliope” a voice hissed softly behind her, making her start and turn.
“For pities sake Penelope, you scared me witless.”
Penelope smiled and surprised her by leaning in and giving her a quick hug. “You were perfect… they loved it. My owner has already had two inquiries. Both other slavers, “she amended with a shrug, “but they seemed very interested. Now I just have to keep up the interest… which is where you come in again.” She grinned and Calliope felt her stomach knot.
“Ah, I’m not so sure…”
“Don’t fret, I’m looking only for advice.”
Well, she thought, it couldn’t hurt to help in that way. “Alright.” She agreed.
Penelope clapped her hands together delightedly and took Calliopes arm, guiding her down the hall. “The first thing we need to discuss is what I owe you for this.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing…” she paused, suddenly thinking of something. Why waste the opportunity after all. “Well, you’re not obliged of course, but if you’d like, There is something you could do for me. I’m rather concerned about the state of affairs regarding why my master has been brought here. If… I was wondering if you hear anything, about him, or about the one they are searching for, if you would be so kind as to tell me?”
Penelope’s smile took on a ‘knowing’ quality. “Is this for your edification, or his?”
She considered that. “Both,” she answered eventually. “What benefits my master, benefits me.”
“That isn’t always the case.” Penelope’s eyes glinted but she still nodded in agreement. “I shall keep my eyes and ears open.”
They wound through the halls quickly, passing that blasted statue of Persephone which always gave her a pang, and very soon came to the rooms where she and the other girls were staying.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be the only ones here.” Penelope whispered as they slipped into the rooms. They were rather different from her master’s. There was an open common room, surrounded by a number of doorways, beyond which rows of cots could been seen. It looked like the slave quarters in her own home… or rather her father’s home. Of course this one was larger and more elegant, but that was to be expected.
She was led into one of the back rooms. Penelope deposited herself before a bench littered with cosmetics and polished mirrors and gestured to one of the cots.
“You have a seat and get to thinking. I’ll show you some ideas I had for makeup, perhaps it will inspire us. I was thinking something a little more dramatic… darker maybe…” She trailed off and began shuffling through the pots and brushes looking for something in particular.
Calliope glanced around the room, taking in the various paintings on the walls. They were mostly erotic, the sort you’d find in private bedrooms. Images of Aphrodite and Adonis, Leda, Europa, Eros and Psyche … and Persephone, eternally ravished by Hades. And we all know where that leads, she thought morosely. Though it was ironic that a goddess of fertility never had children of her own. She winced again at the reminder and glanced back to Penelope.
Although she barely knew her, Penelope was really the only one Calliope had to ask about these sort of things. Demitri she trusted, implicitly… but he was, in the end, a man. He would simply dismiss her concerns… understandably since as a man, they couldn’t be thoughts that would ever plague him. She couldn’t say if she could trust Penelope, but she was at least a woman, a woman trapped in the same world as she… trapped simply because they were women. She decided to ask.
“Penelope?”
“Hmm?” The soft, round face turned up to smile at her, the paintbrush she used to color her lips pausing mid swipe.
“Have you ever had children?” The hand holding the brush dropped to the table upon which her many and various cosmetics sat and her mouth dropped almost as low.
“Children?!” She laughed musically. “You must be mad. Who would want a dancing girl who’d been knocked up? It’ll ruin your figure you know.”
She didn’t wait for a response and lifted the brush back to her lips, carefully drawing it along the bottom curve of her lip.
“So do you use something then?”
“Use?”
“I’ve heard there are things one can eat or drink that prevent it.”
“Ah, yes. Most do, as far as I can tell. Even if we didn’t use them I’ve heard that the divine ones insist on it for their human slaves and servants. Apparently they aren’t keen on diluting their blood line with human blood if they don’t have to.”
“I see.”
Penelope paused again and turned to look at her, setting the polished mirror on the little table before her. “Why do you ask?”
“Just curious. I… was thinking of finding something to use..”
“For prevention, or to solve a present dilemma?”
Calliope blinked in surprise. That wasn’t even an option she’d considered… and as she did, she realized she didn’t want to. The thought made her blood turn to ice. “Oh… ah… to prevent… in the future.”
Penelope stared at her long and hard, her eyes searching Calliope’s face. After a tense moment for Calliope, she merely shrugged and picked up her mirror once more. “I can have something sent to your room later if you like. I don’t know how to concoct the stuff myself, but I hear there are all sorts of herbs one can use. I just use what I’m given. I warn you now, it does taste like hell.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
She shrugged. “It’s the least I can do.”
“I don’t know how my master will react to a child, and it worries me.” She admitted softly.